"best of" poem of the day 11.29.13

strange

they have bright

and shining faces

unblemished skin

they wear coats and scarves

knit hats and boots

although it is too warm

they don’t sweat

they smile in the sun

and walk manicured dogs

down crowded streets

they don’t wake with madness

blurry confusion

staring into the void

at three o’clock in the morning

they don’t know what that feels like

because they are drinking pear cider

and talking on smart phones

holding hands

these well-adjusted pricks

how effortlessly they stroll through

the city’s farmer’s market

fondling apples and pumpkin pies

talking pleasant nothing

while i am on a partial three day drunk

my left eye twitching

brown spots on my skin

unshaven because of a clogged

bathroom sink

these aliens turn my stomach

so strange with their plastic faces

and plastic souls

with their wallets of good leather

and pints of beer that they sip on

taking pictures of neon street signs

these strange and demented

green-blooded lumps of flesh and bone

waiting on friday night

waiting on thanksgiving and christmas

new year’s eve and valentine’s day

these year-long masochists

so happy

so strange

so dumb

so perfectly blank.                               11.15.10

poem of the day 11.27.13

conspicuous consumption

my parents were always on me

about how i spent my money

is that what you’re using that money for?

my mother would ask

when i grabbed a box of baseball cards

from the top shelf of the thrift drug

seems a waste to me, the old man said

to the stacks of comic books and music mags

there was one time that i wanted a monkees boxed set

four cds of hits and extras and unreleased stuff

what can i say?  i was fourteen

and i loved the old reruns

you’re spending your hard-earned money on that?

my mother asked me outside a strip mall oasis records

if she only knew that i’d still be listening

to the set twenty-five years later

maybe she wouldn’t have given me such a hard time

i never understood why my folks

gave me such shit about the money i spent

it wasn’t their money

it was paper route money that i hustled at 5 a.m. for

part-time job money suffering at the goddamned mall

it was birthday money or christmas money

with the caveat that i spend it on whatever the hell i wanted

i figured it was because we didn’t come from anything

and every dollar that they ever got

had to go toward the essentials like food and shelter

tuition and car payments

they wanted me to keep the money away for a rainy day

save it for when i really needed it

as if the fifty-bucks i spent on the monkees

could’ve wiped away my student loan debt

or helped me purchase the house and car i never wanted

having a little bit of cash just makes some people nervous

i tried not to feel bad about my purchases back then

but there was always a shine that seemed to slip from the items

once bought and the critiques began

the magazines were never as good

the stacks of cards came with guilt

a new fitted baseball hat sitting on my bedroom floor

picked up and dusted off because

you spent twenty-five bucks on that hat

and you’re just leaving it on the ground?

the albums i’d consider a waste

if i didn’t play them constantly

i carry that feeling to this day

i can’t buy anything without considering the pros and con

i’ve gone back to stores two or three times

for movies and music

and still walked away empty handed

i feel a small shame whenever

last train to clarksville comes on my ipod

it drives my wife nuts, i know

this indecision

this waffling over the simplest of purchases

but i can’t help it

i never know if i’m going to need

the ten bucks i spent on a book for my lunch

the twenty i dropped on a dvd for laundry

the fifty dollars that i wanted to blow on baseball tickets

to use for gas for a trip home to see my parents

so my old man can show me his new ipad

and all of the cool things that it does.                 

poem of the day 11.26.13

taking stock

the kid with down syndrome

is pacing back and forth in front of my desk

he’s not a kid, really

although he’s small like one

i have him pegged at twenty tops

he keeps pacing then bouncing on one leg to lean in

going puh-puh-puh in lieu of conversation

before leaning back out and pacing again

i can’t tell if he has a question

or if he needs the key to the bathroom

or if there’s something wrong and i should get his keeper

if they’re even called keepers

i split the difference

and keeping reading the new york times

in lieu of doing my job

h-how long have y-you been here?

he finally leans in and asks

do you mean on this planet? i answer

blank stare

i’ve been here too long, i say

spreading a little sarcasm on the morning

i get another blank stare

before he starts pacing again, going puh-puh-puh

and i stop reading the times

thinking, great, now i’m the asshole

who’s giving a down syndrome kid a hard time

four years, i blurt out

he stops pacing

four years here

six years on the job

ten years in this city

twenty years of working with at least as many jobs

in three cities with two cars and two cats and one wife

who was once one of four girlfriends that i’ve had in this life

in fifteen apartments and homes

spread all over almost forty years on this planet

continuing on and on for an incalculable amount of time

until i’m dead and gone and carbon

and someone else is sitting here in this seat answering questions

how’s that?  i ask my new friend

he nods and says nothing

goes back to pacing and puh-puh-puh

while i go back to the times

and an ever-increasingly violent and dull world

where peace and empathy have gone the way of the dogs

and everyone seems to have a cold war nuclear hard-on again

until he leans in and asks me

w-what is y-your favorite color?

and i lean forward and tell him

you know, kid, color is a tricky thing

especially in this country

                                                

poem of the day 11.25.13

cupcakes

the workers at the adult group home

made cupcakes for the people at my job

chocolate cupcakes with yellow batter

but no one is eating them

everyone thinks the residents at the group home

made the cupcakes instead of the workers

maybe the guy who sits in here all day

and laughs at his own farts

or the one who screams for no reason

and throws books while slobbering on himself

they made the cupcakes

not the workers at the group home

there’s no fooling us on this one

so the cupcakes are going untouched

like the cupcakes from last year went untouched

until someone mercifully threw them away

it’s kind of sad, really

the workers at the group home made them for us

because of the pinhead who shits herself

because of the old man who won’t stop stroking his cock

it’s their way of saying thanks

for letting them come in here and read books

and kill an hour or two in the long day

thank you for putting up with them

and the glaring disparities of mankind

still, there are five chocolate cupcakes uneaten at my job

leprous confections in a realm where i once

watched someone lick a doughnut box dry

i got really upset thinking about the cupcakes

on my walk to work in the morning

i thought about how those residents

are somebody’s son or daughter

sister or brother or aunt or uncle

that they didn’t even make

the goddamned cupcakes anyway

i told myself that when i got to work

i was going to eat all of the cupcakes

every single one of them, all five

even though i don’t eat pastries

because they remind me of back when

i was young and fat and ridiculed

but when i got to work the cupcakes were gone

they were thrown away

the tin pan turned upside down in the garbage

with chocolate cupcakes scattered and smashed

our holiday tradition

so i went into my office and had an apple

like i do every morning

i told myself that next year

i was going to eat the cupcakes from the group  home

or whatever it is that they make us

if they make us anything

i told myself that i’d eat then all

until i was stuffed and satisfied

so full of myself

that i could hardly take another bite

                                   

poem of the day 11.22.13

shoes

i have these shoes that squeak when i walk

a pair of  black size 10 ½ nike sneakers

non-descript

non-threatening

a pair of shoes that should by rights

allow a man to slide by in this world under the radar

except they squeak when i walk

squeak

squeak

squeak

like i’m a grocery store clerk

people notice these shoes and kids laugh

my co-worker asked me if i needed

some wd-40 for them

this fucking pair of black size 10 ½ nike sneakers

the first pair of nike that i ever bought

the cheap sneakers i always bought

never squeaked like this

but these do

a week ago they made some lady squint on the bus

a two year-old copied their sound

until his mother dragged him away

it’s what i get for laying down money in america

squeak

squeak

squeak

as i walk to work

as i walk through record stores of the damned

looking through cds

they’re one more thing to draw attention

these aren’t the kind of shoes one can easily

slip through the cracks with

this motherfucking pair of black size 10 ½

big deal nike sneakers

with the stupid swoosh the same color as the shoes

so you can’t tell anyway

squeak

squeak

squeak

i should’ve bought a new watch instead of them

the final straw with the shoes came last night

when i was walking home from work

the crazy man from my street stopped me

he’s so crazy he stops everyone

so i didn’t think anything about this encounter at first

but then he said to me, jesus, pal

you need to get some oil for them shoes

they’re as bad as mine

i took a listen as we walked along in tandem

sure enough

squeak and squeak

and squeak and squeak

and squeak and squeak

like we were both in some kind of

fucked up club together

two morons in these ridiculous

motherfucking pairs of black size 10 ½

big deal nike sneakers

with the stupid swoosh the same color as the shoes

so you can’t tell anyway

walking along sounding like we were killing ducks

i told crazy man i’d see what i could do

before squeaking home as quickly as i could

where i took the shoes off

and threw them against the wall

vowing never to wear them again

i shouted, i’m going back to my boots

and i don’t care if they have holes

and soak my feet whenever it rains

i shouted until the upstairs neighbor pounded

on my ceiling

until my wife came home and told me

that i was being silly

she said, you’re a grown man

why in the hell are you worried about what people think

about your shoes or anything else?

my wife has a point, sort of

but she doesn’t really understand

because she has a pair of light gray chuck taylor

canvas shoes that don’t squeak at all when she walks

she doesn’t have two year olds mocking her

people offering to buy her some lube

the crazy man comparing notes on our choice of footwear

she can get by unnoticed

unlike me

squeaking deep into the night

like a sad shroud of gloom

doomed to wear this chain of commerce

this pair of black size 10 ½ nike sneakers

at least until the soles give out.

                                               

poem of the day 11.21.13

a midsummer night’s sex romp (1993)

just nineteen

i sat on a bench with her in the dark
of a closed park

while colby did whatever to her friend

far off in the bushes

she said, i’m fifteen and if you touch me…

i said, relax

she said, i’m not like her

and pointed off toward
the rustling and laughter

i checked my watch and said, oaky

i’ll scream, she said, while her friend moaned

so will i

that made her laugh

but i’m still not going to, you know…

i put my hands under my ass

and said, i’m not even asking you to so…

i just wanted you to know

thanks

we sat there and watched

the pink night sky of the city
while the bushes laughed
and rustled in ecstasy

what time was it anyway? she said

i took my right hand out from under my ass

and checked my watch again
twelve-thirty, i said

great, great, she said

then she shouted at the bushes
come on already! curfew!

while i slapped out a cigarette and lit it

eewww, you smoke, she said,

waving away the blue cancer trail

only when i’m nervous, i joked

she looked around the dark landscape

at the one car we had parked
by the cracked fence

and said

what in the hell do you have
to be nervous about tonight
lover boy?

 

 

 

poem of the day 11.20.13

girl in the black bra and panties

the girl in the black bra and panties

was trying to kill us

at least that’s what i thought

stuck in her room with the windows shut and the a/c on

while the girl in the black bra and panties

sprayed enough hair spray and perfume to fog the air

but calvin thought that he was going to get lucky

i had no clue where i was going to go while this happened

maybe downstairs to a well-lit and well-aired room

but calvin never got lucky despite his best attempts

today he spent the day playing frisbee at south park

with the girl in the black bra and panties

while i hung under a tree and read john rechy

because it was too hot to play frisbee

because i hate frisbee and knew i’d never make it

in america because i hated playing frisbee

but calving kept saying, come one, dude

like he needed me to help seal the deal

and when the girl in the black bra and panties

asked me what the novel was about

and i told her male hustlers and drag queens

she said, ewww, and gave calvin some kind of look

like we don’t need this guy for frisbee

but that still didn’t get me out of sitting in her bedroom

while the girl in the black bra and panties

murdered the ozone with hair spray and perfume

while she pranced around in next to nothing

mouthing mariah carey songs and leading calvin on

with cute little smiles

and hours later when we were on mt. washington

with a ton of other people who had

nothing better to do on a saturday night

but blast shitty music out the windows of shitty cars

and wait for the cops to shut it all down

and i was alone thinking about john rechy novels

trying to figure out some way out of pittsburgh

calvin came looking

for the girl in the black bra and panties

with a pack of dudes that we knew from high school in tow

a bunch of guys that we never liked anyway

who wouldn’t believe anything about him

and a girl in a black bra and panties

even if she took them off above the city lights

and threw them both in their faces with a laugh

i didn’t have the heart to tell calvin

that i saw her drive off with three black dudes

laughing, a pounder of iron city in her hand

her legs sticking out the passenger window

of a stark white car

hanging there like bronze temptation

another missed opportunity

in the warm, thick summer night

                                                           

poem of the day 11.19.13

drunk on wine

drunk on wine

and going to buy more wine

because the second bottle broke against

the door frame

and sent a cascading stream

of blood red jesus juice

onto the white kitchen floor

under the refrigerator too

i watch the people along third avenue

gussied up for a saturday night

as if they were grotesque clowns

in this sick carnival of my failure

sneezing my calamity

strangled on their cheap perfume and cologne

cascading in the hopeless hope

of their carnal civility

i suddenly wish that i didn’t need another

bottle of red wine

i wish that i had been  more careful

and thorough in my plans

a better, more purposeful me

and that i never had to come out

amongst these glamorous

stinking swine

in the first place.

                                    

poem of the day 11.18.13

dara smith’s ass

there was dara smith’s ass

right there on display in her kitchen

a minute before that

i was looking at baseball cards

with mitchell and dara’s sister viviane

when the two girls got into a fight

and viviane pulled dara’s sweatpants down

then there was her ass

dara smith’s thirteen year-old

held-back-twice-i’m-a-bitch ass

and no one went to pull her sweatpants up

not viviane

not mitchell

who covered his eyes

and kept saying, oh my god, oh my god

like seeing dara smith’s tight basketball playing

track and field running, swim team ass

was such a bad thing

dara didn’t even go to pull up her pants or cover her ass

she just leaned stomach-side against the wall

with her hands over her face, laughing

saying oh my god, oh my god too

i couldn’t help but look

even though i hated dara smith

because she was always calling me fat

and because she told all of the neighborhood kids

that ray ray and i were fags

and he and i were currently fighting over that

but an ass is an ass

i knew that at thirteen years-old

and even though this one belonged to dara smith

i was going to look for as long as i could

memorize it and maybe use it against her

when mrs. smith walked into the kitchen

and said, what in the hell is going on here?

before she pulled up dara’s sweatpants

and pulled viviane out of the kitchen by her hair

as mitchell and i

scared shitless

ran out into the february cold

catching our breath a half mile later

to talk about pitchers and catchers heading to florida

and how much we both still loved

miami vice.                                                       

poem of the day 11.14.13

cafes in paris

i can’t speak

a foreign language

i can’t speak english well enough

to satiate my own thirst

for what it is that i want from this world

but i’ve sat in cafes in paris

staring at a statue of balzac by rodin

with the swirl of boisterous discourse

going on all around me

not understanding

a single word being said

and i felt more alive that way

i feltl like the luckiest man

on the face of the earth.

                                    

poem of the day 11.13.13

divas

lady gaga songs come on

in a bar full of old men watching football

on a sunday afternoon

and i think

what in the fuck?

but then it’s cher

donna summer

diana ross

adele and britney spears

it’s last dance at full speed

but i’m only on my third beer

this has to be some kind of joke

because the joint has suddenly morphed

into an old fag bar

have i been gone from here that long?

maybe they changed owners, i think

but the music keeps coming

courtesy of an old, thin queen

who keeps getting up to pump dollars in the juke

as cincy and baltimore play

another autumn sunday into oblivion

then it’s christina auguilera

mariah carey

saint whitney houston

beyonce

and something called a nicki minaj

before the immortal madonna blares

express yourself in a club remix for good measure

queeny keeps asking everyone

if they like the music

like he’s mayor

the grand dame d.j. of this diva joint

we all say, yeah

and he goes back to his dumpy blonde

at the end of the bar

contented

back to a woman who’s singing the madonna so loudly

i might never listen to the material girl again

and when colin comes in the bar

he kind of looks around

like he might be in the wrong place too

but then he sits and orders

his bud draft and the shot of jack

that he’s been sucking down for years

as a express yourself ends

and a last dance encore begins

as old men oblivious to disco hits

shout at the tv screen

and roll dice for money and free drinks

a whole row of newly anointed bears

only they don’t know it

and after colin takes down half the draft

he turns to me and says

what?

no celine dion this week?

                                                

poem of the day 11.12.13

helpless

she says can you help me

but i’m not so sure i can or want to

because she’s in here every day

same gray hooded sweatshirt

takes up the same computer

and spends the morning filling out

application after application

she can’t use a computer too well

she gets the applications all wrong

and has to do the simplest things all over again

some days i feel bad for her

she has to be in her sixties

she should be thinking about retirement

she should already be retired

instead of applying at burger king and key food

but america keeps taking retirement from people

like they’re taking taxes for the right to die in peace

america keeps spitting people out

just to spit them out again

like this is some kind of  joke

only most days i don’t feel bad for her

because this endless economic slog isn’t my fault

because i’ve been unemployed a number of times

and have always managed to bounce back

without anyone’s help

typically i feel burdened by her presence

and the defeat that seems to emanate

from every pore in her body

afraid to let my fingers touch her keyboard

because i worry that i might one day

become inflicted with the same stench

of aging and dread that she has

my old and useless self

applying for jobs at chain hardware stores

or a subway sandwich shop

and to be honest i can’t hide my contempt

when she calls me to come over

to help her plug in her hired and fired dates

on jobs that are older than me

only she has to be gracious because

i’m decades younger and have a professional job

the answers to the questions she’s asking

the gateway to her self-improvement and self-worth

and when she tells me that she only has

a printed copy of her resume

instead of one on a flash drive or even a floppy disk

i want to hit the roof

because she’s wasted a good portion of my morning

my coffee time

my social networking time

my newspaper time

my pension collecting hours

only she puts her head in her hands

and starts to cry right there in front of everyone

quiet yet ceaseless

while i lord over her with my keys in my hand

a sample flash drive between my thumb and forefinger

like a switchblade

as stock still as a mannequin

counting the seconds between her tears

waiting ever so patiently

for my empathy to rise like the sun

for the two of us to begin this morning

anew.                                                                           

poem of the day 11.11.13

humiliation

i turn back awkwardly

arched back

to grab a stone white door

when this ten year-old girl says

shouldn’t you be protecting those things?

i don’t know what she means at first

but then the other ten year-old girls start to giggle

and i have my suspicions

i mean, like, you know, like girls protect those things?

and there it is

ripped to shreds by some pre-teen wench

some little brat who doesn’t even have breasts

picking apart my man boobs

to another chorus of laughter

and it would so easy

so very fucking easy to crush this kid

to point out her natty. yellow teeth

tell her no boy will ever love her

with those natty, yellow teeth

that no dentist from brooklyn to l.a.

would be able to fix them unless they were a genius

then start in on her friends for their elf ears

their own buck-teeth and flat, sexless chests

but i’m the adult in this situation

and if one of these kids start to cry

if one of these kids storms off to tell her mom

it’ll be my ass on the firing line

so it doesn’t matter how humiliated i feel

how much i want to recoil

the last bits of me from this mortal state and die

i just shrug

i tell the girls i have no clue what they’re talking about

while they continue to laugh at me

while i walk away resolving to toss this shirt

this navy blue waffle shirt

that my wife got me two christmases ago

because i liked it

because i thought i looked good in it

finally looked good in something

burn it in a funeral pyre with those other bits of clothing

that made me a target in this place

the powder-blue shirt that larry said made me look fat

the green shirt that my supervisor said made me look homeless

let them all burn

shirts and pants and jackets

white and light colors

until my closet is exorcised

until it becomes a black void of fabric

that i’ll wear like some brooklyn hamlet

to hide the madness and self-loathing

the man boobs forevermore

protecting myself from the mean little girls

and everyone else

an entire planet of flesh and blood and bone

and little else that i’d hazard to call human

on my most

generous days.

                                   

poem of the day 11.08.13

lazy river

my parents didn’t have a pot to piss in

for the longest time

but the family caught a lucky streak

around the time that i hit twelve or thirteen

and we were able to go on vacations for a few years

like normal, white, middle-class americans

we went this one time to sea world and geauga lake

to see the captive orcas and other trapped sea creatures

put on shows for us and eat chum

and daydream an open sea they’d never have again

while we clapped along with all of the other

normal, white, middle-class american families

across the way at geauga lake

there was this big amusement park with water slides

and water rides and all of these other rides

that kept the white middle-class american families

half-naked in the ohio heat of july

but i was twelve or thirteen or maybe fourteen

well aware of girls and hot young women in bikinis

their tits and the strands of pubic hair

hanging out the sides of their bikini bottoms

well aware of the fact that i was massively overweight

and that i had a pregnant lady stretch marks

on my stomach and arms

that there was no way in hell

i was going around some amusement park

half naked in the ohio heat with my fat, white

stretch marked stomach on display for every

hot girl or young woman in a bikini to see

no matter how much my old man paid to get me in

so i found this thing called the lazy river

which was just a grooved tunnel that went around the park

it filtered through about three to four feet of water

just enough to float on with rafts

or on your back or fat belly like i did (in a t-shirt of course)

the lazy river was full of old ladies and men

or women with their infants and toddlers

it was a good place for me to hide

from the girls and young women in bikinis

from the embarrassment of being twelve or thirteen

with stretch marks and a double chin

but every so often someone would find me

my dad or my mom

my brother or our family friends

they’d try to get me to come out of the lazy river

to go on the water slides or wave pools

but i knew there’d be girls in bikinis on those rides

thin, white, middle-class american girls

with their long legs and tight asses

with their beautiful smiles and diamond eyes

who’d want nothing to do with me and my fat

so i stayed where i was in the lazy river

floating along with grandmothers and great aunts

even though everyone thought  that i was just

being a moody kid in the ohio heat

even though i heard my old man complaining to my mom

all about the money they’d spent getting me into the amusement park

how i was old enough to stay alone back at the hotel

if i was going to be like that

where i could sit on my ass and watch tv

a tv most likely full of girls and young women in bikinis

with smooth porcelain skin and shining blue eyes

females who were real enough for me to touch

and maybe talk to

but not quite.

poem of the day 11.07.13

ray ray is on facebook

ray ray is on facebook

i found him when i was snooping the other day

i found his sister too

she’s a writer now

of course my first thought was

great…another writer

but there was ray ray on facebook

living a life and hanging out with friends

going to heavy metal shows

taking road trips to visit civil war graves

he’s still playing his guitar

and it looks like he has a master’s degree in latin

it was good to see

that his old man hadn’t destroyed him

like i’d feared for years

because ray ray’s old man

was the scourge of the neighborhood

threatening to kill himself in public

and breaking into the black neighbor’s homes

to spray paint racial epitaphs on their walls

i thought for sure ray ray was in a mental institution

or held captive in his old man’s basement

i don’t know why i started snooping for him at all

usually when i snoop on facebook

it’s for old friends who’ve become religious nutters

or for girls who never gave me the time of day

in grade school or high school

i’m always happy when those women have gotten fat

divorced, work shit jobs, and have about four or five kids

but ray ray was different

he was my friend for a while

we used to play with star wars figures all of the time

we watched star trek

and pretended we were the monkees

he was mike nesmith and i was micky dolenz

my brother was davy jones

we had no peter tork

because ray ray’s sister wouldn’t play a boy

but i bet she can write a mean one now

we were friends until people started telling me

not to be his friend

that ray ray was weird and anti-social with the other kids

he couldn’t play sports

and you had to play sports in my neighborhood

if you wanted to survive

besides his old man was crazy

he chased ray ray’s mother with a butcher knife

and rumor had it that he’d killed a neighbor’s dog years ago

why would you want to spend any time over there?

people would ask me

of course i listened to them

because i was too young to understand

the bonds of friendship

i was too young to defy my parents

and hold back the sway of suggestion from my friends

or even bother to think for myself

i was too young to understand

that ray ray needed someone in his life

me

so i let him go

i sacrificed him to his crazy old man

to the ridicule of the kids on the street

i played baseball and football and basketball

until i couldn’t stand myself

i was the neighbor kid you could say hi too

while ray ray carried umbrellas on sunny days

and talked to himself to drown out the catcalls of the other kids

and whatever madness his family put in his head

i’ll even admit that i teased him too

but, christ, that was a long time ago

and ray ray is on facebook now

he’s living in memphis and just got a place of his own

he no longer lives with his sister

whose books are sci-fi and fantasy by the way

i wonder if he’s in a band

last night i told my wife

that i found him while snooping on facebook

i told her, ray ray is on facebook

she asked, are you going to email him?

and i just said no

it was enough to know that ray ray is out there

smiling for the camera

happy

and without the need

to be visited by a ghost like me

some dumb neighborhood kid

another blank face full of vicious memories

who could never tear him down.

                                                            

poem of the day 11.06.13

fifty million dollar man

dolores comes in the staff room

catches me right when i’m about to head out onto the floor

says, you might as well stay back here

because larry is looking for you again

and he’s kind of pissy today

i’m sure he’s a little bit drunk

i’m sure it’s cognac

larry is a big cognac drinker when he drinks

i’m not in the mood for him today

i’ve only been back in new york for two days

after a week playing poet and tourist in california

i’m hardly sleeping

i don’t want to be back at the job

i’ve been drinking too much again

the night before i mixed jim beam and red wine

and my stomach has been paying for it all morning

i don’t feel like dealing with larry

and the fumes of old booze that come off him

two hangover drunks in the morning make for bad news

i don’t feel like looking up attorneys for him 

because he refuses to learn how to use a computer

or talk about bogart or carey grant movies again

because he refuses to watch anything made after 1960

i don’t want to hear another one of larry’s tits and ass jokes

or stand there while he tells me that i’m getting fat

and what a cunt his ex-wife is

so i stay in the staff room even after i’m scheduled to start work

thinking it a prison within a prison

eventually i take my chances

i see larry over by the dvds and sneak into the office

i close the door thinking, i did it

that i’ve evaded the enemy again

but the knock comes no less than a minute later

then it’s larry poking his head in without being invited

aviator shades on

the smell of old booze permeating the room

him or me?

hey, kid, he says, i need you to look something up

and i wonder what it could be this time

a notary form or another hot dog vendor license

i’ve learned more about being a hot dog vendor in new york city

since larry started coming in this joint

so much that it’s now become my fall back plan

if this public servant business doesn’t work out

but today it’s a poor person’s workman’s comp form

something i’ve printed six or seven times already

so i know where to go thinking this’ll be quick and painless

but larry lingers

he talks to me about his daughter and his injuries

a twisted ankle this week, kid, he says,

a cracked rib last night

(although he seems to be walking without pain)

injuries most likely sustained after falling over

from a night with the cognac and bogart films

but larry will try and use them to work the system

he’ll claim them as old and recurring working injuries

i almost cracked my head, kid, he says

when i get up to fetch the workman’s comp forms

and i just hope ol’ larry doesn’t try patting my belly again

he says, and don’t get me started

about losing fifty-million dollars

huh? i think

fifty million dollars, i say, only i can’t hide

how much i don’t care

because larry has lost more imaginary money

than trump has made

yeah, he says, you know those fathead stickers

that people put on their walls?

the ones of football and hoops players that’re like lifesize?

i nod because i know about them

while larry shakes his head, huffing out the cognac

that was my idea, he said

i had that idea years ago

big stickers and removable wall paper

and both of them got sold for fifty million dollars

that’s too bad, i tell him

the cognac smell is making me sick

it’s making me want a drink

when larry leaves i’ll have to take a shit

or run to the drug store for gas-ex pills

i’d go to the liquor store

but i don’t want to start that shit again

not at this job

not in this city

so i got fucked out of fifty million dollars, kid, he says

so why don’t you print me some kind of

copyright infringement forms while you’re at it

i find him bogus ones on the internet

so as to not waste the court’s time

when i finally give them to larry

he shoves them in his coat pocket

like they’re driving directions

and i know i’ll be printing them again next week

i make a mental note to bookmark the pages on my pc

while larry corners me

with his cognac breath and depression and says,

so, kid, this lady with huge tits

comes walking into the bar and…                                

poemS of the day 11.05.13

the politicians

mornings lately

the politicians have been out in full force

standing outside the subway stations

or lurking around the bus stops

they smile

and try to shake the hands

of the common, tired citizen

on their way to work

or the unemployment office

there is usually a republican on one side

a democrat on the other

although it is hard to tell which one

is from which party

the politicians wave at everyone

and shovel their bullshit to any victim

whose hand they can grab for more than a few seconds

they talk about their vision of america

while day dreaming those automatic pay raises

gold-plated health benefits

and all of that free congressional parking

there is a faceless handler

ubiquitously next to these golden bags of gas

it is typically some vivacious young blonde

with a warm smile and perky tits

who passes out fliers

that remind everyone when election day is coming

then every few hours

the politicians switch sides of the street

to do their dog and pony show all over again

before they disappear

into the mist

a mere myth

until the next campaign season

comes again like christmas.

                                                08.23.12

the voters

the voters are out

in full force

they keep stuffing my

mailbox with candidate fliers

but i can’t tell these people apart

they are for different things

but none of them

represent what i want

which is to be left alone

the voters send me emails

asking me to support

this person or that

i look at the web sites

and these people make me sick

with their ugly families

and talking points

they make me wonder

how one gets their teeth so shiny

the voters

think that every election

is important

but most of the voters

are well-off and white

with two cars and dull kids

with toilet paper degrees hanging

on their painted walls

elections never really change

their position or status

they no longer have any idea

what is important

they get mad

at minorities for not showing

up on election night

the voters are still carrying around

that good ol’ white man’s burden

i’m willing to bet that they

wouldn’t think so much about voting

if each night’s dinner came out of a box

full of sugar, salt, and preservatives

if they had gunfire outside

of their big, beautiful windows

metal detectors at their schools

and drug dealers hanging around

their pretty little parks

but the voters

will tell me that the only way

to change this

is to get out and vote

join the other assholes

and have your voice heard

they honestly believe that they

are changing the world

then they go home and watch the results

with some ice cream or popcorn

on one of the 24/7 news channels

the voters believe in the system

because they have never

had faith in anything

including themselves

they do not realize

that nothing has changed

and nothing ever will

that you cannot put blind trust

in egomaniacal fools

looking for a soft road

on the pathway to death

you cannot trust these people

as far as you can throw them

man can only help mankind

one person at a time

but the voters don’t care

they’ll be up early on election day

washed and well-dressed

a good breakfast in their soft gut

so full of pride and civic duty

they’ll be parading around like peacocks

then thankfully they’ll be gone

for at least another 365 days.                                        10.26.10

tea bagged

the muslim family

on the street

spend their morning

looking at their car

the one with

the windows busted out of it

the green glass

scattered on the sidewalk

in tiny cubes

the day after a primary election

in brooklyn, u.s.a.

the political postcards

still hammered into yards

the smiling faces of politicians

promising disgust

the muslim family stone-faced

their big american car broken

no other big american cars touched

on the whole block

the muslim boy looking at me

fat from the land

with my long hair and beard

safe and white

a three-hundred dollar toy

in my pocket

playing my whole music collection

as i walk along

toward a sea of flags

and traffic

dipping down the next block.

                                    09.15.10